Vote for Change…Really?

It seems that election time has arrived at U of T. I don’t really care because I’m not an undergrad, but I can’t help but glance at the posters plastered all over the school walls and pillars.

Many of them simply say “Vote NAME NAME for POSITION.” Well now, why should I vote for NAME NAME? The poster makes zero effort to tell me about NAME NAME’s qualifications or their primary concerns. This is something I’ve seen for years, dating back to secondary school elections, so I just chalk it up to posters choosing visual effect over information delivery. As long as the details are available elsewhere, it’s not a huge problem.

One thing I’ve been wondering about is why almost all of the posters seem to emphasize the desire for change.

The undergrads at U of T must be a very unhappy bunch for everyone to be promising change. I would love to see posters that said

Keep everything the way it is. Vote for stasis! Maintain the status quo!

Hm…perhaps stasis is a negative word. How about “stability”? I’m certain that as soon as a new student government is elected, they will spend one third of their time learning the ropes, and then a few months maintaining the status quo, and then try to make some changes in a feeble way too close to the end of their year to implement it as a sustainable change, such that when the new government comes in, the changes will be forgotten.

Another likely outcome is that the new government will try to make changes, only to find that there were good reasons for things to be the way they were, and encounter too many obstacles to actually implement the changes. The student body will also complain about the changes that are being made, and nothing will change.

Why are the campaign tag lines so vastly inconsistent with the actual agenda of candidates? Or is it just that candidates are all incapable of carrying out their promises?

People should get real and campaign for status quo. After all, it can’t really be all that bad.